


This is home.

by Houseofmalfoy



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F, Minor Augustus Rookwood/Rodolphus Lestrange, Minor Character Death, Minor Lucius Malfoy/Narcissa Black Malfoy, Narcissa Black Malfoy-centric, Trans Female Character, because fuck jk rowling, narcissa's trans and she can fight me herself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:35:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21834523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Houseofmalfoy/pseuds/Houseofmalfoy
Summary: A character study of Narcissa Malfoy nee Black, with mentions of cissamione endgame.Narcissa Malfoy has known many definitions of the word 'home' through the years. She reflects on everything that has changed in her life over the years during christmas in the place and with the people that is 'home' right now.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Narcissa Black Malfoy
Comments: 6
Kudos: 111





	This is home.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SoaringJe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoaringJe/gifts).



> This was written for the Cissamione server's gift exhange!
> 
> Warnings for briefly mentioned transphobia and childhood abuse

Narcissa had known many variations of the word  _ home  _ throughout her life. 

There had been her childhood home, of course. A household suited to a family as noble as the Blacks. Rich interior, strict rules, love that never felt as unconditional as it could have been. 

The Black household had consisted of the excruciatingly clear contrast between their mother’s cruelty and their father’s admiration for his daughters. Druella, who expected only the very best of the three girls and had never seemed satisfied, and Cygnus, who could not be more proud of each of them as the years passed by. 

Home had been etiquette lessons followed alongside Sirius, they had been so close in age. It had been her father teaching her how to play the piano, how to dance each of the required dances at their society’s galas. 

Home had been sneaking fire whiskey from her father’s cabinet and sharing it with Rodolphus, hidden away in her bedroom. Early childhood memories made with people that were still in her life, even if they hadn’t always been, and with some that were lost forever. 

Home had turned into screaming matches between her parents about everything she and her sisters were doing wrong. Bella’s ambitions in the Dark Lord’s ranks that were as unladylike as could be, her cruelty that Cygnus feared and Druella nurtured; Andromeda’s rebellion against the family’s values and her insistence that the youngest Lestrange wouldn’t be a match for her; Narcissa’s own rebellious phase, the changing of a name and a planned future down the drain that her father supported and made her mother rage like nothing ever had. 

It was that little rebellion that had given her everything around her today, she supposed. 

Home had been her mother’s never ending remarks, her criticism and her vile words and the curses that followed them more often than not. 

Home had been her father’s arms that made everything feel that much better.

oOo

If home was a person and not a place, as she had heard people say, Rodolphus had been home too.

Rodolphus, who had invited her over during the summers spent at home with Druella’s vile ways and hadn’t asked questions and hadn’t made judgements. Who’d shown her his father’s favourite Granian horse and despite the blood on his knuckles and the dark mark prepared to be branded on his skin after Hogwarts treated the creature’s wings with a gentleness she’d never seen. 

Who hadn’t even asked why she spent the Christmas holidays, the first one during the rebellion that infuriated her mother so, at the castle instead of at home. Who’d stayed with her as if it was the only logical solution and made sure to take her to Lestrange Manor with him when there was news of a pegasus filly being born. 

Rodolphus who’d been her brother long before he’d become her brother in law. Whose arms had held her when her father passed too early and Lucius didn’t understand her pain as well as  _ he  _ did because by then his own parents were gone too. Who had been reckless and aggressive and gentle and warm and cruel when it suited him all at once and maybe that odd combination of traits had made it so easy to call him home.

He’d understood her rebellion and he understood why she didn’t change her name to another form of a star and he understood just as well why it was terrifying and painful not to; understood the pressures of growing up the heir of a family and understood the fear that came with the realisation that maybe you couldn’t live up to the expectations. 

He’d understood it better than Lucius could and he didn’t need to say out loud that he understood because it was obvious, at least to her, in the way his eyes lit up when Augustus Rookwood smirked at him a certain way. It made him safe and it made her realise she craved that understanding. It made him home.

oOo

Malfoy Manor, this manor, had been home for so long.

Narcissa had married young. She had been eighteen years old and had married her nineteen year old husband directly out of hogwarts. That same summer, three years after her name had become Narcissa Black it changed once more to Narcissa Malfoy and at the time she thought it would be forever. 

In retrospect, perhaps she should’ve realised that she’d always be subjected to change in one way or another. But Malfoy Manor and Lucius had been home nonetheless.

The manor had been home during strolls along the grounds on her husband’s arm, admiring the pure white peacocks and the white roses while they stole kisses in the privacy of enormous gardens. 

Home had then been the comfort of Lucius’ arms hugging her when he came up behind her, the luxury that she had grown up with and was now all hers, and the radiation of dark magic from a mark she had long grown used to. Everyone she loved and everyone she’d ever called home had that mark. It was home as much as the people were, she’d figured. 

Home had been tears of happiness when she’d become pregnant the first time and home had been screams of pain and unfairness when it hadn’t been meant to be after all. Home had been Lucius’ arms so tightly around her that it felt he might choke her but that somehow being just what she needed. 

Home had been a little boy’s first cries and tears of happiness when his first word had been ‘mama’ and it had been all the enchanted toys and expensive clothing for that precious bundle of joy and life that she could find. She’d vowed to keep that precious one safe with all her might, and she has not yet forgiven herself for failing him so. 

_ Draco sits in the next room, now, happy and safe and traumatized by a war she couldn’t have kept him from. He is home, still. _

The home that had been Malfoy Manor had been ravaged and tainted and destroyed by a second war that none of them had wanted. She had lost the childhood home when her father died and she had lost the home that had been Rodolphus when he’d gone to azkaban and now she came so close to losing the home she had left to the Dark Lord and his followers and nothing frightened her more. 

Home turned into waking up from other people’s tortured screams and having a morbid curiosity to who they were and what was happening and being utterly relieved at rarely ever finding out. 

That home recovered a little when Rodolphus and Bellatrix came out of Azkaban, battered and bruised and broken more than she’d ever been able to imagine, but home and her home still. 

Home became her son’s terrified and then empty eyes and not knowing which she hated more to see, and it became her arms around her little boy when everything was too much and though she couldn’t keep him safe she could make sure he knew she would always be there. 

Home that had once been happy and safe and everything she ever needed became a nightmare she couldn’t escape from and memories that she doubted would ever leave the place. 

_ Now Draco lives in Malfoy Manor again, and there are rooms no one is allowed to enter but he seems happy with his choice and she would never force him to leave. It’s where they are now, and it feels right. They’re home after so much time.  _

oOo

After the war and after her husband’s death her home had been, to her surprise as much as her sister’s, Andromeda Tonks’ house in muggle Britain. Home had been tense and uncomfortable conversations between sisters who hadn’t shared a home in twenty-five years and it had been arguments that matched their parents’ about everything that had gone wrong in their lives since their childhood home. 

It had hurt her more than she’d have liked to admit to be forced to change her name back to Narcissa Black after twenty years of marriage, but even though Andromeda had assured she didn’t have to she knew that wasn’t true. Malfoy wasn’t home anymore, not after everything. It wouldn’t be for years and when it would become home again it wouldn’t be because of her.

Home had been conversations until deep in the night that always ended in tears. Hugs that only a sister could give and that she had missed so terribly over the years. Memories brought up from a father that maybe hadn’t been such an ideal man but had been a perfect father to the three of them, and of a mother that they both agreed would have been better off having replaced their father as the first to die.

Home had been Delphini Lestrange and Teddy Lupin, orphans of war and so entwined in the Black family tree and the mess that came with it. It had been the two of them learning to crawl and saying their first words and being passed around when Andromeda’s friends and Narcissa’s remaining family came over.

Home had healed her, brought her back to life just as the destruction of the second war had shattered it.

Home had been the first step to meeting who and what would become home — and Narcissa was almost scared to say it because it never seemed to be true — for the rest of her life. 

oOo

She had met Hermione Granger when she had come to see her sister’s grandson. 

Meeting Hermione Granger had felt like coming home.

Briefly, Narcissa’s home had been Hermione’s flat in muggle London. It had been learning how to brew her own tea the muggle way and frightening herself with a toaster and a hairdryer that she vowed to never touch again. 

Home had been laughing over morning cups of coffee and kisses she stole from a witch that seemed to bring back the magic and the joy in her life while she was making dinner. It had been coming face to face in painful ways with the mistakes of her past and the consequences it had for her future. 

Home had been Hermione’s arms around her at night when she needed to hold someone and Narcissa was so willing to be that someone for her. Home had been laughing until there were tears in her eyes and making peace with mistakes she would never set right, not really, and realising that maybe that was alright after all. 

Home had been Hermione Granger getting up when Delphi cried in the middle of the night because even though she in no way had to, she wanted to help taking care of a niece Narcissa never expected to have. She fell in love with that little girl regardless of where she came from and who her parents had been. That was the most beautiful thing about Hermione Granger, if you’d asked Narcissa.

She hadn’t stayed in Hermione’s flat for long, but it had been Hermione Granger and the new feeling of home she had brought that made it feel safe enough to go back to a childhood home she’d said goodbye to once at eighteen and for what she’d thought would be forever at twenty when her father died. Eventually she would have to understand that the word  _ forever  _ had very little meaning in her life.

It had been Hermione’s home that led her back to Black Hall. 

Black Hall that required thorough cleaning out and the elves spend two weeks cleaning out all the memories that stuck to decorations and her mother’s preferred furniture. All that remained was neatly decorated drawing rooms, childhood belongings, and her father’s legacy. 

Black Hall became home when Rodolphus returned from a second stay in Azkaban, for which Narcissa doesn’t think she’ll ever stop being grateful to minister Kingsley. He was her home and she was his for a while before the inevitable reconciliation with Augustus Rookwood. 

_ Still, she doesn’t think Rodolphus will ever stop being home. _

Black Hall became home when Hermione Granger sold her flat in muggle London and moved into Black Hall with her. It became home when Hermione’s voice filled the rooms and her laughter startled the portraits and it became home with every cheesy mug she brought with her and the quills and scrolls of parchment she scattered around the house.

Home became walking into Black Hall and seeing Hermione asleep on a sofa with Crookshanks on her stomach and it became home when Rodolphus still visited and Draco brought along Astoria and it became home when Andromeda came over with Teddy and left toys and empty glasses of wine. 

oOo

Now this is home.

Now, home is the way Hermione looks at her with stars sparkling behind brown eyes and dark curls flying every which way when she shakes her head laughing at jokes that Narcissa never considered so funny but are when it’s Hermione she’s telling them to.

Home is Draco’s protective arm around Astoria no matter what and the kiss her presses against his wife’s temple every time he tells her he loves her. It’s Astoria’s beginning baby bump and that there’s no eggs being served because they trigger her morning sickness.

Home is her arm around Hermione’s waist standing by the window and looking out over the rose gardens and the peacocks that remain on the grounds and home is Hermione’s whispered “ _ Merry Christmas _ ” that only Narcissa catches and home is the innocent kiss they share and how it feels more right than anything ever has.

Now home is hearing Delphini’s shrieking laughter when she’s on her hands and knees and Teddy with his dark brown curls to match his cousin’s sits on her back pretending she’s a horse. Home is the tears in Andromeda’s eyes that are of laughter and will later be of grief and home is the hug Astoria offers her when she sees. 

Home is Hermione’s kiss under the mistletoe earlier that day and it’s the exchange of Christmas presents in the privacy of the home they share. It’s the times Delphi comes over to stay with her aunts for a while and it’s the times that James  _ Sirius  _ Potter and Roxanne Weasley do the same. It’s the understanding that Hermione wants no children of her own and the two more cats they took in instead. 

Home is now Rodolphus who makes a stupid joke — she really believes fatherhood is bringing out the worst of his humour — when he asks Hermione if he can steal Narcissa away for a moment. It’s his arms around her in a silent recognition of everything and everyone that’s happened with and between them and an unspoken moment of remembrance of all that’s passed them by.

Home is the drink they share and the way he looks back at where Augustus Rookwood is lifting Delphi off the floor and spinning her around with laughter in his eyes. Home is being able to look at him that way and home is the joy Narcissa feels for him and the beam of pride in Rodolphus’ face when Delphi calls him ‘papa’ like the french.

Home is sitting on the sofa next to Hermione and talking with her daughter in law while her niece and her nephew play at their feet. Home is remembering her late husband and remembering her later sister and remembering her late father and home is being able to do that and still feeling as if all is well. 

Home is Hermione’s lips against her cheek when she senses her mind begins to wander and home is shaking the thoughts of because when they get home there’s more than enough time to unpack them. 

Home is it being Christmas Eve and the family that’s remained and that they have acquired over the years. Home is every single one of the people in this room and the place they have created with each other. 

Home has been many things over the years and Narcissa has become afraid to think in terms of  _ forever _ but if there’s any one home she could choose to remain her home for the rest of her life, it would be this. 

Home is safety and laughter and comfort and tensions that are alright because they pass when they need to.

Everchanging and everlasting at the same time because home changes as her life does but she’s always had it. Home has always been there in one way or another. 

This is home. 

She’s home.

  
  



End file.
